Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Messy Night

Tonight at about 9pm we were sitting having our dinner, when the phone rang. It was the Spanish doctor from the medical centre in San Antonio, they phone us quite a lot these days, basically he had a guy who had been brought in who wasn't ill and just needed someone to talk to. Bethany and i went along and when we got there we found out the guy was italian, so with Bethany's Spanish and my english we listened for over an hour to his sad tale, he spoke a little Spanish and English and actually if you know a bit of Spanish you can understand a bit of Italian. We listened when eventually he communicated that his problem wasn't physical it was spiritual! He didn't know we were christians. basically when he was low in the past his Italian priest prayed with him and he felt better, he even showed us how his priest prayed by placing his hand on his head. So we asked if we could pray for him he said yes so I laid my hand on his head and prayed that God would bring him peace. It was amazing his whole countenance changed and he then prayed for us, first he kissed a picture of his priest 5 times then we also had to kiss it. With that he got up and said "you people are from a different world" and we walked him out and he left happy.

We went home for half an hour and then went out on the street. Tonight was messy we took one guy home who had drank far to much vodka, then we got a call out to help a really large girl home. Helen and Bethany spent ages with her they had been there an hour before Bruce and I turned up in the van, we then drove them home about 3 miles to their hotel. When we got to the hotel the younger more sober girl was very rude to the staff, i tried to calm her and asked her to quietly get in the lift and go to her room. She then told me to "f**k off" I politely pointed out what we had just tried to do for her but she just stormed off swearing, bethany went after her and then she turned and slapped bethany in the face and back with her shoe. It was horrible I was so furious i thought the guy on reception was going to kill her, he was also very angry. In the end there was nothing we could do we had dropped them with their parents and they were safe so we left them.

No time to process we had to drive on and pick up a girl who had got totally wasted and take her home, they were lovely girls and very grateful (we don't do this for peoples gratitude but we do appreciate gratitude)

We drove back to what looked like a double murder!!! (okay I'm tired and being overly dramatic) two guys lying in the street surrounded by their caring friends. It turned out they were okay just lost the use of their legs we got them back to their hotel it was quite comedy as one of the guys trousers fell down in the lift, I felt like I was dealing with a two year old.

We then drove back to the medical centre were two of the guys on our team were waiting with a guy who had sobered up and needed a lift back to his hotel. We dropped him and the guys of at the hotel only to receive a phone call that it wasn't his hotel! So we drove back to get him whilst driving to him he just got up and ran off leaving our guys with his shoes! We couldn't stop him or find him. At least he was sober enough to go for a jog and we think he ran off because he had spotted his hotel.

At that point we called it a night and came home and here I sit after 8 hours of madness trying to process what has just happened. I'm not depressed more distressed this is fulfilling, frustrating, energizing and wearying work.

I feel sad and battered but alive and happy. How can that be?

I'm also a bit annoyed with myself that I reacted to the drunk girl by trying to put her right and tell her what we had done for her to make her grateful. I think it made her more angry which in turn may have contributed to Bethany getting a slap. I'm angry with myself that I let Bethany run after her and backed off myself.

Tonight I know why i blog, it helps me unload. If you're the praying kind please send one up for us.......